It's a combination of languages: Germanic ("Vater"="Father"); Latin ("Deus"= "Deity"); Greek ("Pneuma"="Breath" [pneumonia]); and then words from various other languages (such as "al gib'r" from Arabic="albebra" and "al kohl" from Arabic= "alcohol"). English tends to use word order (as opposed to word endings) to express meaning. For example, there's a big difference between "I love you only" and "Only I love you." In some languages, word order makes no difference because the endings on the words or the forms of the words carry the meaning. The letters used in the English language can be traced all the way back to the Middle East in ancient times ("aleph" = the letter A; and ="beth" equals the letter B. Someone who knows his "alephbeth" knows the "alphabet."<br /><br />So if you want to know where English came from, I'd have to ask you, "How far back do you want to go?" <br /><br />The English language of Chaucer (1300's) would have to be studied to be understood. However, by the 1500's-1600's, the language of William Shakespeare can be understood. The English used in the King James Version of the Bible is the language of the 1600's. (BTW, King James didn't translate it. He just appointed the committee that did the translation from the Greek/Latin versions available.)

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English was discovered by someone in England. He must have been thinking "these words we speak, let's call them a language". And since those same words were spoken all over England (but until then not outside of it), he called the language English.<br /><br />The same thing happened in other countries where other languages were being spoken. Language borders varied from time to time, but languages more or less remained in their own area. Because of that we got several countries where different languages are being spoken. For example Belgium where the northern half speaks Dutch while the southern half speaks French.